Jimmie Nicol joined the band for a short stint in 1964 – after Ringo Starr was hospitalised with tonsillitis.

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Jimmie Nicol joined The Beatles for a short stint in 1964Credit: Getty Images

Jimmie not only got the opportunity to play with The Beatles during the height of their fame, but he also got the chance to hang around with music legends John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

However, this only lasted for two weeks, and then everything went back to normal for Jimmie.

Jimmie’s whirlwind began when Ringo Starr collapsed with tonsillitis on the eve of The Beatles’ 1964 Australian tour.

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Jimmie’s whirlwind began when Ringo Starr collapsed with tonsillitis on the eve of The Beatles’ 1964 Australian tourCredit: Getty Images

The band’s manager Brian Epstein, as well as their producer George Martin urgently discussed the viability of using a stand-in drummer rather than cancelling the rest of the tour.

George happened to suggest Jimmie Nicol - as he had recently used him on a recording session with Tommy Quickly.

Jimmie appeared in his first Beatles concert just 27 hours later at the KB Hallen in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Before hitting the stage, he was styled with the distinctive Beatle mop-top hairstyle and even wore Ringo’s suit - despite the trousers being too short.

Paul McCartney recalled teasingly sending Ringo a telegram saying: “Hurry up and get well Ringo, Jimmy is wearing out all your suits.”

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Jimmie Nicol, one time back-up drummer for The Beatles, strolling around Hyde Park with his son Howard on his shouldersCredit: Getty Images

Commenting later on the fickle nature of his brief celebrity, Jimmie remembered: “The day before I was a Beatle, girls weren’t interested in me at all.

“The day after, with the suit and the Beatle cut, riding in the back of the limo with John and Paul, they were dying to get a touch of me.

“It was very strange and quite scary.”

Whilst visiting the Netherlands, Jimmie and John Lennon allegedly spent a whole night at a brothel.

John said: “There’s photographs of me grovelling about, crawling about Amsterdam on my knees, coming out of whore houses, and people saying ‘Good morning John’.

“The police escorted me to these places because they never wanted a big scandal. When we hit town, we hit it – we were not p***ing about. We had [the women].

“They were great. We didn’t call them groupies, then; I’ve forgotten what we called them, something like ‘s****’.”

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1964:

The Beatles are widely acclaimed as the towering geniuses of popular music and icons of the swinging Sixties.